Ms Caroline O'Loughlin:

The Deputy is absolutely right that it is a cultural shift. I think since performance budgeting was introduced in 2011, post the crash, the demand is there. People want to see what is being done with money. It is all about value for money. Since our Department was created, the focus has always been on value for money. There has definitely been a shift. An enormous amount of work has been done on performance budgeting to make sure that it is not seen as a propaganda exercise or a pass or fail. The key part is transparency and accountability. It is trying to capture the reality of what was intended and what was delivered. That has certainly been a shift for the Civil Service and probably for the political system too. It has come an awfully long way. As Dr. Moran said earlier, it is an iterative process. Every year, we try to make sure that the quality of the metrics is improved and that the performance information best serves its purpose. We can see we can provide evidence of how it has changed year on year because the demand or requirement has shifted. Specifically, we have an example of a recommendation from this committee on how we change the format of the report. So the answer is yes, very much so, but I believe that every year, the standard is becoming higher.